


It does not do to dwell on dreams

by Zigster



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Arthur and Ariadne are Ravenclaws, Beauxbatons, Dream Visitations, Dreaming, French Eames, M/M, Mirror of Erised, Quiet Arthur, Room of Requirement, Soulmate-esque
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-28 08:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17179793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigster/pseuds/Zigster
Summary: Inception AU set in the Harry Potter-verse. Arthur is a student at Hogwarts who comes across a curious mirror that shows him a beautiful boy he's never met before.Or, the fic where Arthur says 'holy shit' a lot, bonds with Ariadne over breakfast food, and is never once called 'darling' by Eames.





	It does not do to dwell on dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a bit of a lark. I loved the idea of Arthur as a Hogwarts student, and wouldn't it be rather lovely yet bittersweet if he saw Eames in the Mirror of Erised? Well, that one idea grew a bit larger than I was expecting. I hope the idea delivers. 
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely Lediona25.

When Arthur was eleven he received a curious letter that forever altered the course of his life.

Two months after he'd received that letter, he left the lemon-yellow sunshine and foaming surf of California behind for the chilling mists and wild craigs of the Scottish Highlands to attend a special school for children just like him. He hadn't known he was anything special until that letter, written in vivid green ink, showed up at his door, telling him of a place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the very real world of magic. It was a world filled with endless unknowns, new curiosities and the promise of adventure. It also offered him a rare chance to explore his newly discovered talents in the land of his father's heritage, which he was all too eager to experience. He soaked in every little detail like a thirsty sponge under a leaking tap.

At the age of fifteen, in his fifth year at the school, whilst strolling (somewhat ironically, he would later note) the fifth-floor corridor of Hogwarts, his now too-short robes billowing behind him, he noticed a door materialise out of what was only a granite wall not seconds before. He frowned, perplexed at this new eccentricity the castle was exposing him to as if it were allowing him in on a long-kept secret. He darted a glance up and down the hall, but no other students were to be found, so he stepped forward and pressed his hand onto the ornately carved door, wondering if it would grant him entry. With a creak and a hiss of stale air, the door gave under his palm and he found himself in a room unlike any other he'd ever seen.

Many times in the coming weeks, months, years, Arthur would slip away to the fifth floor, to his secret room, relishing the quiet, the calm, the constant steady hum of soothing atmosphere that happily embraced him every time he stepped through its doors. The room changed to his needs. Sometimes, it was outfitted with a squishy chair, a never-emptying tin of biscuits, and a roaring fire, allowing him the perfect place to finish his Potions essay without any other curious students’ prying eyes looking over his parchments. Other times, the room was nothing but a series of vast floor to ceiling windows, showing him the sunny shores of the California coast, the rushing waves of Big Sur crashing in celebration, as if they were welcoming him home. They’d twist and morph into the shores of Brittany if he’d found himself homesick for his grandmother’s garden and the scent of the madeleines she’d bake for him every summer when he’d come to visit. He grew fond of the room, of its eagerness to please him, and of its tireless nature to do so.

On the first day of his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, he pushed through the doors of what he now affectionately considered to be his room with a goofy smile plastered over his still boyish face, ready to greet the place like an old friend, only to find the room dark and empty. He stepped lightly on the floor, worried he'd upset the room somehow (perhaps with his summer absence?) but then he noticed a mirror sitting sentinel in the far corner. Curious, he approached, walking cautiously towards his own reflection, but as he came closer, he realised that he was not the only one reflected in mirror's glass. Arthur jolted in surprise and spun to address the newcomer, wondering how a fellow student had somehow followed him inside without his notice, but he was alone. There was no one else there.

He turned back slowly, the crunch of his shoes on the flagstones echoing loudly in the cavernous space, and there, in the mirror, stood the boy, just like before. Behind him the room was empty but in front of him, the boy remained. He shoved a hand through his hair, his brain not allowing him to process the impossibility he was clearly seeing right before him. On a whim, he spun back around, convinced this was a trick, but no one revealed themselves to Arthur. He was the only one in the room. The only one except . . .  the boy smiling inside the mirror. 

Arthur, momentarily accepting the improbability of the situation,  took a hesitant step back to study his strange new companion who stood so confidently next to his reflection in the glass. His hair was longer than Arthur's but slicked back against his head, with one strong arm slung haphazardly over Arthur's much slimmer shoulders, a cocksure gesture that spoke of an easy familiarity between them. The boy smirked at Arthur, running his tongue over his full lips and bending down to whisper something into Arthur's ear before Arthur shoved him and he fell to the floor, laughing. The Arthur in the mirror blushed at whatever the other boy had said, but it was clear that Arthur wasn't truly angry with him. The boy remained on the floor until his laughter died down to a humorous chuckle, crossing his legs in front of him and resting back on his elbows only to look up at Arthur with nothing short of wonder in his eyes. Eyes that were singularly focused on him: Arthur. No one had ever looked at him like that in his life. The boy's gaze was so intent that Arthur blinked in astonishment and almost looked away, fearing that he was intruding on an intimate moment. But, how could he be intruding? It was Arthur the boy was mooning at! Arthur, with his lanky limbs and boyish dimples and flyaway black hair that never stayed tamed, no matter how many charms he used. Arthur, who spent more time studying ancient runes and potions ingredients than actually conversing with his fellow classmates.

Arthur sat down hard on the floor in perplexed shock, his reflection doing the same. It brought him closer to the boy's attentions, and he watched with rapt fascination as the boy reached a hand out to tuck an errant dark curl behind Arthur's ear. He tried to frown at the boy's overt gestures but saw a smirk play at the corner of his mouth, just the same. A moment later, the boy reared up to tackle Arthur to the floor, rolling and tossing him about as if he were a rag doll, but they were smiling, laughing with pure joy clear on their faces. It was suddenly very hard for Arthur to swallow, his throat felt so tight.

Were they. . . _together?_

Was this his future? A parallel world? A dreamscape he'd created out of fantasy? He looked away from the mirror, blinking hard at the emotion stinging the corner of his eyes. He scanned the room for answers but was only offered the sudden roaring flame of a fire in a hearth that hadn't been there a moment prior and the feel of a soft cushion that now laid beneath his crossed legs, no doubt saving him from the chill of the flagstones. He smiled at the flames, so grateful to this room for all that it had given him over the years. The solace, the peace, the retreat from the demands of learning how to be a new person in a new world. And yet, now, the room left him questioning his reality.

He turned his face back to the happy boys in the mirror, to the image of himself so carefree, his heart felt heavy with the melancholy of a missed memory he'd never actually experience. How was this all possible? To feel envious and heartbroken over his own reflection?

He couldn't stay here, watching such a private moment between these two boys, even if one appeared to be himself. He couldn't stand to see such joy on his own face, knowing he'd never actually smiled that broadly in his entire life. Coming clumsily to his feet and tripping over the cushion in his haste, he fled the room, leaving the roaring fire and that damnable boy with his beautiful eyes and his too-sure grin behind.

Arthur ran and promised himself never to come back.

 

* * *

 

 

He lasted three days.

Three pathetic days of staying away were all he could manage before he was shuffling back to his favorite corridor in the castle and looking up at the blank wall with nothing short of pleading in his eyes. The room did not disappoint and easily offered itself to Arthur, its doors yawning open with a welcoming gust of warm air. He stepped through to the version of the room just as it had been on his first day of term: the fire in the hearth, the cushion on the floor and the mirror in the corner. He hesitated for only a second before his feet were carrying him too quickly to stand before it, and sitting down even faster in hopes to see the boy again.

The mirror only reflected Arthur, eager in his crossed-legged pose, his face flushed and yearning. He craned his neck trying to see beyond himself but couldn't make out anything except dull grey mist.

"Shit," he cursed, his eyes falling to his hands, his fingers worrying at the pleated edge of his trousers. Where had the boy gone?

A knock sounded, hollow and faint before him, and Arthur's head shot up to see an all too familiar face in the mirror staring back at him. Arthur's own reflection was gone, and only the cocky boy with his easy smiles remained. He was seated on the floor, just like Arthur, his legs crossed beneath him, just like Arthur, and in the background, he could see the reflection of flames coming from the same hearth as Arthur's, and yet, this was not a reflection. For the first time, Arthur realised the boy wore a school uniform, not unlike is own but wholly different. They were soft blue, as opposed to black, and on his chest, he saw a crest with the letter B emblazoned across the soft, sewn filigree. The blue of his robes matched the deep blue of his eyes and Arthur swallowed realizing that his singular gaze was once again focused solely on him, though Arthur had been too busy taking in the oddity of his clothing to notice.  

The boy's brow creased with concern, and knocked again, looking to Arthur with a multitude of questions in his keen eyes, as if Arthur held all the precious answers. Arthur shrugged awkwardly and raised a pale hand in a small wave, wondering if he'd perhaps somehow lost his mind. Perhaps this had all been a dream and soon he'll wake up in his sunny bedroom back in California? Arthur hoped desperately for that not to be the case and pressed his hand to the cold glass of the mirror, his need to reach out to the boy immediate and unexpected. The boy's face, having seen Arthur's gesture, broke out into a heart-stopping smile, exposing crooked teeth that Arthur couldn't help but find endearing. He felt himself uncharacteristically grinning back at him. He was blushing, he knew it, and he hated himself for it. The boy, however, seemed to enjoy Arthur's smiles for he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the glass and closed his eyes, his smile slipping to something sadder, almost lonely, yet still content. Arthur bent and matched his pose, wanting to comfort this beautiful figment. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy's hand came up to mirror Arthur's, their palms touching through the cool pane separating them.

This was bizarre, Arthur thought.

"Who are you?" He breathed, watching his words fog the glass.

The boy jerked back at the question, his eyes wide. "You spoke. You never speak. You can't." His voice sounded as if it was being filtered through water, his accent rich with a French lilt.

Arthur shook his head in utter disbelief. "You're real?"

The boy smirked. " _Oui_. You're not real, though."

Arthur frowned. "What do you mean?" Of course, he was real.

"I made you up in a dream," the boy said with the saddest smile Arthur had ever seen.

"No, you didn't."

The boy cocked his head to the side, looking like a curious dog and Arthur grinned at him. This was madness, but such was the way in a world filled with magic. The fact that Arthur was speaking to the boy seemed to make him happier, more animated, and Arthur wanted very much to keep that all-too indulgent smile aimed at him. His need to make the beautiful boy happy was suddenly very important to Arthur's well being.

"Tell me your name," Arthur asked, eagerly shifting closer to the glass. His knees bumped the mirror, matching the boy's on the other side.

The boy pressed a hand to his chest and lifted his chin with a flourish before announcing himself as, "Eames."

Warmth flooded Arthur's belly at that single word. The boy had a name. He was real, and had a name! Surely, Arthur wouldn't be able to make up something as ridiculous as Eames for a name - this couldn't possibly be a dream. A small, cynical part of himself answered, yes, it very well could be. Stranger things had happened, much like finding out that there was an entire world of magic that existed parallel to his own. He shook himself of such a rationale, and instead, took a moment to look up at the gilded frame surrounding them. There were words carved into the top, but too tarnished with soot and age for him to see properly, and in a very uncharacteristic turn for Arthur, he found that he didn’t care.  He had a sudden and very wonderful thought: this strange mirror had granted him a rare gift, it had given him a friend.

He smiled and, mimicking the boy's gesture, said, "I'm Arthur."

Eames' eyes seemed to glow at the name, making Arthur shift in his seat. He felt flushed all over and had a strange urge to duck his head and hide from Eames' gaze. People normally didn't pay much mind to Arthur's presence in a room. He'd made sure of that with his quiet demeanor and tendency to lurk unseen in the background. He liked being unassuming, it always made it that much more satisfying when he would ace a difficult spell in Defense Against the Dark Arts and half the class would look at each other with the same question on their lips, where'd he come from? He enjoyed his invisible life, and yet, being the subject of Eames' singular attention was intoxicating in a way he'd never experienced before. Behind him, the fire dimmed in its hearth, as if the room could see the sweat soaking into Arthur's shirt collar. He swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry, his eyes heavy with something other than sleep.

The atmosphere in the room had shifted without his notice, and he didn't know how to rectify it, nor did he think he wanted to - he liked feeling this way.  

Arthur splayed his hands on the glass, his mind a jumble of questions and desires he didn't even care to untangle at that moment. Instead, he leaned in, willing Eames to do the same, and beamed when the boy matched his position. His slightly larger, tanned hands pressed against Arthur's palms, eclipsing them easily. Heat pulsed through the mirror at the touch, and Arthur realised that he could feel Eames' magic greeting his own. When Arthur looked up, his face awash with newfound joy, he noticed Eames' eyes had pooled dark, their color changing completely as if they morphed with his moods.

Arthur swallowed again at the sight as a rush of magic zipped down his spine, causing him to shiver. Eames' mouth quirked, no doubt proud of the reaction he'd caused. Arthur flushed but couldn't help the smile that pulled at his lips, he was too drunk on these new, wonderful emotions to care if his dimples were showing or how red his ears might be. He could sense the connection of their magic seeping through the mirror, giving proof to the fact that this was, in fact, real, and that's all that mattered.

They sat there with their hands touching through the glass, grinning at each other for what felt like hours, giddy with the sense of discovery and longing and want all wrapped up into one hormonal teenage package. Arthur wanted to ask Eames so many questions: where he was from, what the B on his uniform meant, if he was a wizard like Arthur, why he spoke such perfect English but was clearly French. He was filled to bursting with them, and yet, neither of them spoke. Instead, they sat and watched each other, drinking each other in, feeling the pulse of their magic surround them in a warm cocoon, and learning things that shared words could never tell.

Arthur didn't know how long he'd sat on that cold floor but at some point, he must have fallen asleep, his head drooped against the glass. He thought he could hear Eames' humming sweet murmurings to him in French that seemed as if they were being sung from a million miles away. He wanted to shift closer to the sound but found himself rousing to consciousness, his legs painfully numb from being curled beneath him for so long. He lifted his head, rubbing at the crick in his neck, only to blink at the empty, dark recess of the room's far corner. The mirror had vanished.

He jerked back, suddenly frantic, his eyes scanning the room for the mirror, searching for the image of Eames somewhere around him. He called his name, his voice rough from sleep, but only heard his own strained voice echoed back down to him from the stone archways.

He was utterly alone.

"No, no no no . . . " he struggled to his feet and then promptly stumbled, his sleep-numbed legs useless. He scrambled for his wand and spelled a quick pick-me-up charm over his limbs, hoping the same trick he used to wake himself up on a too cold, too groggy morning would work to revive the blood flow to his poor legs. After a few moments, the charm took effect and he struggled to a vertical position with a small sense of triumph.

When he could manage to successfully place one foot in front of the other, he escaped the room, noting the dark and quiet of the castle around him. It was well past curfew, but Arthur was beyond caring about Filch and that stupid cat of his - detention be damned.

He needed to get to the Ravenclaw dorms, he needed to find Ariadne.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you insane?" Ariadne spat as she wrapped a dressing gown tightly around her middle, the grumblings of her fellow roommates floating out from the darkness behind her. She shut the door to her room and glared at Arthur. "What could possibly be so important that you had to pound down my door right now ?"

Arthur's mouth opened to explain and then promptly shut, his throat closing in on him along with his pride. He had no clue how to convey any of what had just happened to him over the past several hours, nor three days before that, nor two years before that to anyone. The whirlwind of questions the mirror's presence in his life had brought him was not something he was prepared to answer, nor could he fathom attempting to explain them to Ariadne with any sort of clarity or conviction. He was at a loss, and yet, he knew without a doubt that if anyone could help him, it'd be Ariadne, so why on earth could he simply not say it?

"There's a boy," he blurted, his voice sounding strained and rough from disuse.

Ariadne frowned at him, all of her ire melting in an instant.

"Okay," she said and walked him over to one of the large leather chairs in front of a cold hearth, spelled it to life with a flick of her wand, and sat him down like a doting mother hen. "Arthur, are you telling me that you're having a sexual identity crisis at three in the morning and you needed me for . . . support?" Her eyes were understanding and filled with only kindness. Arthur shook his head furiously at her and tried to swallow down his frustrations.

"No! I'm not. Well, maybe. That's not important. There's this room. It appears whenever I go to the fifth-floor cor-- oh, fuck it. I'll just take you there." He stood and wrenched Ariadne out of her chair, much to her immediate protest.

"Arthur, wait! We can't just go there. It's past curfew."

"Who cares? We have to! Eames is gone. I can't-- he's real and I just -- I have to find him."

Ariadne placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder, which despite understanding the warmth of the gesture, made him furious.

"Who's Eames."

"The boy!"

"Okay. What does this have to do with a room on the fifth floor?"

Arthur tugged hard on his hair, his eyes stinging with emotion. He'd never been very good at expressing himself when he was angry. He much-preferred silence to speech, lest he'd explode a paperweight by accident.

"I . . . I . . . I don't really know. But there's this room. On the fifth floor. As far as I know, I'm the only one who knows about it, but I'll show you. I promise. In the room, there's a mirror and in the mirror there's Eames."

It was as simple as Arthur could put it, even though it sounded profoundly idiotic once he'd said it out loud. He dropped his head into his hands again, pulling at his curls.

Ariadne looked even more concerned and confused than two minutes prior but nodded just the same. Her voice was calm and steady. "Okay. And he's . . . stuck in the mirror?"

"No. Yes? I don't know! But . . . he's important. You need to understand that. I don't understand it, really, but he is, and it's . . . he's important. To me. And I was sitting in front of the mirror and fell asleep and when I woke up the mirror was gone, and I just . . ." Arthur rubbed hard at his chest, finding it difficult to breathe. He didn't understand this terrifying need he felt for a boy he'd only met twice and conversed with once, but despite not knowing him at all, he was undoubtedly certain that he very much needed him in his life and the fact that he suddenly wasn't sitting right in front of him any more hurt.

Ariadne forcibly sat him back down into a chair in front of the hearth and shoved a glass of water into his shaking hands. He gulped it down. She conjured more and moved to sit across from him, radiating a sense of calm that Arthur appreciated, if not ferociously envied. She gestured for him to drink more, and he did. When he was finished she took the glass and placed it on a side table and then clasped her hands in front of her, waiting, patient as ever.

Arthur nodded at her silent invitation and spent the next half an hour talking way more than he ever cared to, explaining all about the room to Ariadne. How he'd first found it in fifth year, and how it morphs depending on Arthur's needs, and how at the beginning of this term it had suddenly become stagnant, only displaying the mirror to him and nothing else. He begrudgingly admitted that he’d noticed words carved into the mirror’s frame, but had been too enthralled with the images playing out before him inside it to care at the time. This earned him a smack on the head, and despite it mussing his hair, he accepted the abuse as fair - being purposefully dense sometimes was not a trait he enjoyed having.

Ariadne decided, considering the unknown words and the description of the mirror, that what Arthur must have discovered was the Mirror of Erised, a curious (and dangerous) creation that shows the viewer their truest desires. She remembered reading about it in third year for a history essay. Knowing what the mirror was didn't explain to either of them how he could converse with Eames through it, someone he didn't know existed until a few days ago (and if he didn't know he existed how could he desire him?) or feel the pulse of his magic, or the heat of Eames' hand through the glass on the other side. Arthur clung to that thought, his hand flexing in his lap, the phantom warmth still tingling there from Eames' large, broad palm splayed over Arthur's more delicate fingers.

"It's real, Ariadne. He's real."

And despite all of her careful thought processes and need for logic and common sense to reign supreme in her mind, despite the fact that The Mirror of Erised was rumored to have been destroyed in the seventh century by a rogue warlock who'd gone mad from staring into its depths for too long, she found herself agreeing with him, this boy, this Eames must be real.

"We'll find him, Arthur. We will." She grasped his hand in hers, squeezing gently with a sad smile tugging at her lips. The grandfather clock in the corner chimed, signaling the start of a new hour, and Ariadne yawned as if on cue.

"We need to sleep."

"I can't."

"You have to, Arthur. I promise I will help you, but first, we need sleep."

With that she stood, reaching her hand out to his. He followed her, a frown growing deeper on his face with every step. She gave him a hug before she left him at her door, surprising him. He folded himself around her, too wrung out to protest the touch, and embraced her back, whispering a thank you into her hair. He felt her smile against his shoulder and then pulled away, leaving him with one more reminder to try his best to get some sleep. He nodded and shuffled off towards his room.

With reluctance Arthur crawled into bed, his shoulders tense and his face hurting from his constant scowl of frustration. He starred hard up at the drapes of his four poster bed, tracing the patterns on the ancient damask curtains with his eyes until his lids grew heavy with unwanted fatigue, and before he knew it, he'd slipped away into the darkness of his dreams.

 

* * *

 

 

_Arthur. Arthur._

Someone was murmuring his name softly in his ear, tickling him and making him shiver all at once. He squirmed in his sleep, moving closer to the sound and the warmth it provided. He felt cocooned in his blankets, which were heavy with extra weight, as if he was being held by them, wrapped in their embrace. He sank into the feeling, content to be held.

 _Trouve-moi, Arthur. Trouve-moi_ , the voice whispered, the syllables drifting across his skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. He'd been having a lovely dream, though it was quickly being chased away now by the sound of that voice, those words . . .

Arthur shot awake with a choked gasp, his eyes wide with unknown panic. He looked around him, feeling a sense of lingering heat where there was now only morning chill and rubbed at his ear where warm breath had only moments before ghosted past his skin.

"Holy shit."

His heart was pounding and sweat prickled at his forehead as he shoved at the duvet, feeling overheated and desperate to get his legs free. He needed something cold to drink. Filling the empty glass on his nightstand with a flick of his wand, Arthur gulped down the cool water, his hand shaking and slipping against the glass.

What the hell had just happened?  

Staggering to the bathroom on trembling legs, he splashed the freezing water from the tap over his face, and rubbed a wet cloth over the back of his neck, looking at his haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror. Once he'd gotten his breathing under control and was sure his heart wasn't going to burst out of his chest of its own accord, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to relive the chilling sound of Eames' voice echoing in his dreams.

 _Trouve-moi,_ he'd said.

_Come find me._

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur shoved as detailed a sketch as he could across the table towards Ariadne later that day in Advanced Potions. She'd asked him to describe to her any telling details about Eames' appearance, something they could use to help figure out where to start looking. Arthur had already told her that he was French, but Ariadne wanted more, so he'd tried his best to remember every fold of blue fabric, every curl of embroidery on the filagree emblazoned across the right side of Eames' robes. The elegant script of the B being the most prominent.

Ariadne took one look at the uniform he'd drawn and her mouth dropped open into a comical O of both shock and amusement.

"What?" He asked, his frown deepening.

She smirked. "Arthur, he's not a muggle, he's like us!"

He blinked at her. "Explain."

"This is a Beauxbatons uniform. It's like France's Hogwarts. He's a wizard too!"

Arthur looked down at his sketch and rubbed at the back of his neck, remembering the warm breath he'd felt against his skin only that morning. He couldn't help the small smile tugging at his lips. Of course, Eames was magical. How the hell else do you speak to someone in their dreams? Then again, Arthur never remembered learning that in any of his classes, perhaps the French were more advanced Legilimens than the English? Is that how he found his way into Arthur's mind as he slept? It must be. That didn't explain the feeling of being held though, the heavy weight of the duvet that Arthur was now convinced had to be the embrace of Eames' arms. Arthur found himself wrapping his own arms around his torso, missing the sensation.  

"Arthur?" Ariadne was snapping her fingers in front of his face.

He shook himself and looked back her, frowning. "What?"

"Add the beetroot, won't you? We need to let this sit for seven minutes before stirring in the belladonna seeds."

"Your ability to multitask is staggering."

"Thanks." She threw him a lopsided grin. "Yours sucks. If you're going to sit here and daydream about your mirror boyfriend, please place a book over your lap to shield the rest of us from your raging hormones."

Arthur coughed, choking on nothing but air and mortification, before quickly crossing his legs under the table. He turned towards Ariadne with a glare he hoped would deter her snark, or melt that smirk right off her face, either one. She merely blinked at him with innocent eyes and a placid expression.   

"I hate you."

"I know. Now, pass me the cricket wings."

Arthur did with a grunt and then sat and sulked for the next five minutes until it was time to add the belladonna. He didn't want to focus on Potions, his mind was elsewhere.

"Where's Beauxbatons?"

"France."

Arthur shoved a hand through his hair, mussing it beyond redemption. He tried his best to hone in his anger, knowing his frustrations were not Ariadne's fault, though stating the fucking obvious was rather annoying. "I know that. I meant, where in France."

"No one knows. The location is kept secret except to the students who attend and the professors."

"How the hell does that even work?"

Ariadne shrugged as she diced up Mandrake leaves with perfect precision. "It's part of the mystique, I guess."

Arthur tried to count to ten, but he'd barely reached three before the bottle of belladonna seeds sitting in front of him shattered. Ariadne raised an eyebrow as Arthur quickly spelled the mess clean and made his excuses to their professor. When the class ended, he fled to the fifth-floor corridor as fast as his feet could take him, regardless if Ariadne followed in his wake or not.

"So, this is it, huh?" Ariadne said, staring at a blank wall.

"You have to need it to appear. You have to focus."

Ten minutes later, the door had yet to show itself to Arthur, and Ariadne was worried for the three-thousand-year-old stained glass windows that vibrated wildly in their sills behind them. She placed a calming hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it only opens to you, Arthur. Perhaps I should give you some privacy." She walked away then, before he could stop her, and situated herself behind the pillar of an adjacent corridor.

She wasn't going to watch, she told herself to let him be, let him have a moment, but something inside her pulled at her to turn around and look. When she did, her mouth fell open in awe. The wall was morphing into a grand set of ornate doors, seemingly being carved from nothing, only to appear fully corporeal in front of Arthur as if they'd always been there. She smiled, her heart leaping in her chest. This was brilliant!

Arthur placed a hand on the door, his head bowed, and a moment later the door granted him entry, yawning wide to allow him inside. Ariadne held her breath as she watched the doors shut and disappear, leaving nothing but a blank wall in their stead. Rushing forward, eager with the excitement of a new discovery, she stood in front of the wall with her eyes closed and a need to see the room echoing through her mind, hoping it would reveal itself to her, hoping she was worthy of such a gift.

She waited a full minute before opening her eyes and when she did, the same grand doorway that Arthur had just stepped through loomed large before her. She couldn't help it, she giggling with joy at the sight and moved closer to place her hand where she'd seen Arthur place his. The doors parted at her touch and Ariadne stepped inside.

"Arthur," she called, "Arthur! This is amazing!"

The words echoed throughout the room, bouncing back towards her off the grand, stone archways of the ceiling. She looked around, spotting Arthur alone in the corner by a roaring fire. Her smile faded when she noted that the room was empty except for the one chair, and when she approached him, her hand coming to rest on his sagged shoulder, she heard him say in a small voice, "it's not here."

Ariadne felt his sadness wash over her like a crashing wave. She'd always known Arthur to be a serious, somewhat quiet person, but he never gave the impression of ever being lonely, despite being often alone. Ariadne always assumed he was content in his solitude. She realised now that what this room and this mirror had signified for him was companionship, and having been granted such a thing, only to have it snatched out from you almost as soon as it'd been given, felt cruel to her. She scowled at the room, wondering why it was playing such tricks on her friend. 

Behind her, another chair had materialised, and she plopped down with a sigh. The two of them sat in silence, at a dead end. Arthur frowned at the fire roaring away in the hearth, angry at his room. Why show him the mirror, or Eames in the first place, if only to rip him away from Arthur only days later. Was the room teaching him a lesson? ' _Get out there more, mate, try and find someone!'_ Well, bull-fucking-shit to that, Arthur thought. This room was not his mother. What it was, was cruel, and Arthur wondered what he'd done to be the center of such a prank.

He went to bed that night with a sour stomach and a permanent line creasing between his brows.

 

* * *

 

 _Ne m'en veux pas, mon chéri_ , came the whisper, repeatedly and with such sincerity Arthur arched towards the sound, his face frowning in sympathy for the poor soul speaking those sad words. He thought he understood their meaning but couldn't wholly focus. He yearned to be closer to their origin and burrowed further into his pillow, wishing to hear more.

"Eames," he murmured, realizing on some level it must be him. He remained asleep and yet knew when the weight of his duvet once again morphed into the consoling embrace of his nighttime visitor’s arms. He must have been drifting someplace in between wakefulness and sleep, a limbo in which he could feel and hear but couldn't rouse or move his own body, unable to react, only to take in what his brain allowed past the curtain of his subconscious.

 _You know I'm here_ , Eames said, and there was amusement in the delivery of the words, a trickle of laughter in the air. Arthur felt hot breath tickling his skin, cresting over his ear, drifting down his throat. His head gave a sluggish nod, too clouded with sleep to truly move.  

_The mirror . . . I'm sorry, it shattered._

Arthur heard the words but couldn't align them in his mind. Things felt too jumbled. The sound of Eames' voice was drifting farther away, the weight of his hold lifting from the warmth of the bed. Arthur's arms twitched, the need to reach out to him paramount, and yet his body did not respond. He whined and shifted, seeking Eames' heat, and finding it gone.

A clatter against the carpet on the floor had Arthur shooting out of sleep faster than he was ready for and he fell off the side of his bed in an inelegant plop that left him flat on his back with his school oxfords digging awkwardly into his side. Something hard was pinned underneath his shoulder blade and he wrenched it out from under his arm, revealing his Potions book, slightly worse for wear. Arthur fell asleep with it in his hands, attempting to study but taking in none of the words on the page, too wrapped up in the mystery of the mirror. The sound of it falling must have woken him.

He scrambled back into bed, diving under the covers, where his toes would not freeze and his dorm mates wouldn't see him. Closing the curtains and laying back on his pillows he thought back on the dream he'd been having, the strange combination of French and English Eames spoke. The rough sound of his voice, so solemn and kind, almost broken. He didn't want Arthur to be mad at him for the mirror breaking. He'd apologized.

Arthur smiled into the early morning light. The Mirror or Erised may be gone but Eames had still found a way to get to Arthur in his dreams. And if it was possible for Eames than it had to be possible for Arthur. He pondered over that possibility for a while, his head full with thoughts of Eames and how little he knew of him, and how much he wanted to change that fact. 

It wasn't until one of his dormmates, Yusuf, hollered through his curtains about being late for breakfast, that Arthur finally swung his legs over the edge of his bed and started his day.

When he sat down at the Ravenclaw table in the great hall not ten minutes later, he leaned over to whisper in Ariadne's ear, "know anything about dream visitation?"

Her head jerked back in surprise and Arthur grinned at her, lifting one eyebrow. Ariadne smiled. "No, but there's always the library."

 

* * *

 

 

"Why the fucking hell is there so little written on dream lore? Seriously." Arthur was finishing up his third cup of coffee that morning and scowling intently at the owls delivering post overhead. If one more feather landed anywhere near his breakfast he was going to hex the lot of them.

It'd been three days. Three days of endless research, a severe lack of actual coursework being completed between the two of them, and an even more severe lack of sleep for Arthur. Which meant less chance of Eames' dark voice whispering French to him in his dreams. It wasn't that he was so entirely starved for attention, being a relatively content person, it was just that he'd realized over the past week how little he actually connected with his fellow classmates, or anyone for that matter. And now there was this boy, this strange, beautiful, unattainable in-every-sense-of-the-word boy, filling his mind with feelings he couldn't begin to comprehend and a longing that was downright embarrassing at times. There really is only so much a seventeen-year-old can take of intoxicating hints of warm breath and soft lips teasing him with the promise of _more_ before he self combusts from sheer sexual frustration.

Ariadne yawned beside him, her jaw cracking wide as she said, "it's not a very broadly studied field. I mean, I'm sure they know all kinds of things about it in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry but it's not like those guys are running around issuing pamphlets on how to infiltrate other people's minds while they sleep."

"Clearly, they do in France."

Arthur heard Ariadne snort in response and he smirked over at her beside him, despite himself. They'd grown closer the past few nights, studying, researching, bickering like siblings. He really did like Ariadne. She was smart and generous and kind, and if it wasn't for her, he'd be floundering around in misery by now. On a whim, he reached for another sausage on a hovering tray nearby and plopped it on her plate. She'd just finished her last and looked up at him with amused surprise.

"How'd you know I wanted more?"

Arthur shrugged. "I can be observant."

She smiled at him and tucked in. He grinned and then sighed, wondering for not the first time if this entire endeavor was a fool's errand. He knew nothing about this boy, other than he was French, clearly some kind of mind magician, possibly a criminal mind magician, and had twisted Arthur round his theoretical little finger.

An owl swooped low overhead, distracting Arthur from his thoughts as its wings ruffled past his hair with a woosh. He immediately tried to smooth is temperamental curls back into place with a grimace.

“Fucking birds.”

“They’re cute.”

“I’m a dog person.” This response was greeted with another snort from Ariadne and a corresponding snicker from a sixth year sitting across from them.

Arthur watched the owl that had nearly decapitated him coast gently back to a perch in the rafters, after delivering its burden to a nearby second year at their table. The child who’d received the package grinned madly down at the brown paper, tearing into it happily to reveal a letter from (no doubt) his mother along with a brightly colored tin of homemade biscuits.

“That’s sweet,” Ariadne said, watching the kid pass out the treats to his friends.

“Holy shit.”

Ariadne turned in surprise, wondering what could possibly have caused a _holy shit_ moment from what they had just seen play out before them. “What? The sight of kindness is so foreign to you, you can’t handle when a kid shares?”

“No, the owls. _Shit._ The owls!”

Arthur jumped from his seat and ran out of the hall faster than Ariadne could even think of a retort to shout after him.

“I guess he really needed to send a letter,” the sixth year across the table said, watching him retreat.

“Holy shit,” Ariadne repeated, her eyes wide with realisation before shouldering her satchel and sprinting after Arthur.

The sixth year watched her go with a resigned expression, unable to fathom what could possibly be so important to mail off at eight in the morning. She shrugged to herself and plucked a croissant from the tray in front of her, returning to the Daily Prophet spread out near her elbow. Some people didn’t know how to savour the simple things, she thought, nibbling on her pastry.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, it’s so obvious. I hate how obvious this is. Shit.”

“Yes, well, perhaps the sleep deprivation has atrophied our brains.”

Ariadne backhanded him on the shoulder. “Speak for yourself.”

Arthur just grinned at her as he attached a quickly scrawled note to the leg of a kind-looking barn owl by an arch-shaped window in the Owlery. He ducked his head, feeling shy all of a sudden as he patted the soft feathers of the owl’s back, hesitant of its cruel beak, and whispered, “I don’t know his last name, but he’s a student at Beauxbatons in France. Hopefully, you can find him there.”

The large owl nodded sagely at Arthur and then spread its grand tawny wings wide before taking off out the window. They watched the bird fly south through the sky, becoming nothing but a speck of dark movement along the misty horizon.

“For hating the avian species, you were certainly very sweet to that one,” Ariadne noted.

Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels, feeling caught out and too tightly wound to respond. His stomach was a jumble of knots, uncertainty, and indigestion. He’d only written one word on the note, hoping for the best but not willing to pour his heart out to a trickster if this all ended up to be some grand prank. He wished for a moment that he could be less cynical, to put aside the endless possibilities of disaster that looped through his head and just smile out at the clouds drifting across the mountains beyond the castle’s grounds, confident that a letter would be returning to him from a secret school no one could find.

The two of them reluctantly left the gentle coos and soft hoots of the Owlery and trudged on to their first class of the day. There was nothing for it but to wait now, and catching up on some of their coursework seemed like a responsible thing to do.

Responsible. Arthur had always been responsible. And steadfast, and painfully practical in a way that spoke more to his American roots than his European ones, and most unfortunately of all, solitary. He really wanted to break that last trend. He thought he’d already started, what with his growing friendship with Ariadne and his new willingness to at least speak to his other classmates, whereas before he simply acknowledged them and carried on with his day. Arthur always seemed to move against the ebb and flow of other people, and now, he found himself turning towards their current. If not diving headfirst into the tide, he was at least testing the waters of what this new direction might offer him.

Staring out the greenhouse window at the southern horizon during their afternoon Herbology lesson, he found himself hoping that more progress could be made, that perhaps, he wasn’t as pathetic as he felt sometimes. Maybe a letter from France would find his way back to him, and soon.

The next morning, when the owl post swooped in with their daily letters and papers and parcels, Arthur sat up straight in his seat, scanning the room for the large tawny barn owl amongst the smaller of his brethren. He realised he didn’t know the owl’s name, and perhaps he should find that out for next time.

If there was a need for a next time. . .

Without warning a letter fell onto his plate, the edge poking through his over-easy egg yolk, causing a cascade of golden color to stain the fine, thick parchment. He quickly yanked it free and Ariadne spelled it clean a second later without even a word. She winked at him before returning to her breakfast, giving him some small semblance of privacy.  

His hands were clumsy with nerves as he used his butter knife to rip through the midnight blue wax seal, leaving a grease smear in its wake. He frowned and rubbed at it with his thumb. It left a mark. He didn’t care.

Flipping open the folded back of the letter revealed to him several lines of script that were neither neat nor sloppy. If he were forced to describe the handwriting he’d call it eccentric. There were dramatic, slashed l’s and tightly scrawled e’s and a flourish of a cross over the t’s. This writing belonged to a very large personality, he thought.

Despite the pounding of his heart, Arthur found himself smiling down at the words.

 

_Mon cher Arthur,_

_A single ‘hello’ is all you send me? And not even a French hello? For shame, dear Arthur. Give me something to live on while you make me wait to see you again. My dreams are empty these days without you near. Do you not sleep?_

_Write more words to me, mon cher. And sleep for me. S'il vous plaît._

_Je t'embrasse,_

_Eames_

 

“Is it dirty?”

Startled, Arthur shoved the letter inside his robes and away from Ariadne’s prying eyes.

“Fuck! Don’t just . . . start . . . speaking like that.”

Ariadne laughed and shook her head. “You’re pathetic. And judging by your blush, rather pleased with the contents of that letter. So, success? We’ve found him? You have a boyfriend now?”

Arthur wanted to throttle her. “I don’t,” he gritted out through clenched teeth, “have a boyfriend. He’s just . . .”

“Someone who claims to have dreamed you into existence and now calls you endearments in French?”

Arthur suddenly felt very cold. “You read over my shoulder?”

Ignoring his accusation, Ariadne daintily sipped her tea and hummed _La Marseillaise_ into her cup. Arthur’s temper flared. He was surprised the fine bone china didn’t snap in her hand.  

“That. Was. Private.”

“But it’s romantic,” Ariadne whined.

“Oui, c'est tres romantique!” Exclaimed the same sixth year who had been sitting across from them yesterday. Arthur and Ariadne turned to stare at her with twin expressions of shock on their faces.

Arthur cleared his throat and leaned forward, “Pardon my French, but, who the fuck are you?” He asked this with his teeth clamped so tightly together the sixth year feared he was going to crack a molar. Instead of pointing out such a thing, she simply smiled at him.

“I’m Mal.”

Arthur nodded. “Hi, Mal. Nice to meet you.”

“You too, Arthur,” Mal said, beaming at him with large, seafoam green eyes.

Throwing his hands up in the air, Arthur shouted, “I was being sarcastic!”

Mal just grinned at him, seeming for all the world to find his outburst endearing.

“So was I, I’ve known you for years.”

Sitting back in his seat, he looked to Ariadne for help. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“She’s in our house, Arthur.”

“And?”

This was met with a sigh and as Ariadne shook her head in resigned disappointment. Across from them, Mal chuckled and Ariadne grinned at her as if they already had a collection of shared secrets between them. Arthur groaned, letting his head fall backwards with a huff.

“You’re in our Advanced Potions class, too,” Ariadne offered, causing Arthur’s head to snap up in shock.

“I am.”

“And you’re French. I hadn’t noticed your accent before.“ Ariadne said, as her hand moved to grip Arthur’s wrist hard under the table.

Mal shrugged, “I tend to keep to myself.”

“Well, clearly we need to be best friends now.”

Ariadne continued to shake and wriggle Arthur’s wrist, jostling his entire body in the process and being entirely unsubtle as her excitement grew. Becoming rather sick of the abuse, Arthur flicked her in the ear, much to her disdain. The tactic worked, however, since she let go to rub away the sting.

Across the table, Mal tutted at him. “Don’t be so cross, Arthur. Ari here is just excited because she thinks I can help you get into Beauxbatons since, as she said, I am French, and did spend the first three years of my schooling there.” Mal offered this information as if it were nothing, as if one of the things Arthur wanted most hadn’t just suddenly been thrust into his lap like the delivery of the morning’s Prophet.

Arthur paled, blinking at her. “How did you--”

“And you’d tell us how to get there?” Ariadne asked, interrupting Arthur’s question.

“Of course.”

Always the skeptic, Arthur frowned. “Why?”

Mal tilted her head to regard him with a small smile. “Why not?”

Ariadne elbowed him. “I love her,” she whispered to him, and then looked to Mal and repeated. “I love you.”

Laughing behind her hand, Mal kindly thanked Ariadne for her sudden declaration.

“Coincidentally, Beauxbatons is a beautiful place to visit, so it is never a hardship to go back,” Mal said with a casual shrug to her shoulders. Her accent lilted and floated over the syllables like a stream trickling over pebbles, every once in a while catching on a stray word that sounded much sweeter than the others. It was clear that she had grown up in two vastly different places, much like Arthur had. He no longer sounded American, but he didn’t sound wholly Scottish, either. He grinned at the similarity they shared.

Despite himself, he leaned over his forgotten toast and asked, “Why did you leave?”

“Oh, simple. My father, being French, loved his mistresses too much and my mother, being English, felt that marriage required far more loyalty than my father was willing to give. So, he lives in a ski chalet on the Swiss border and I live with my mother in London. It’s all very civilized.”

“So, what you’re saying is that French men are pigs?” Ariadne hedged, one eyebrow raising. Arthur restrained the urge to kick her under the table.   

Mal’s large eyes widened impossibly further. “No! Not at all. They’re wonderful.” She turned to Arthur then, and smiled at him, her expression consoling and with too much knowledge behind it, which brought him right back to being furious, and wholly suspicious of the girl. They’d only spoken of Beauxbatons in the library. How the hell did Mal even know that they’d been looking for a way to find it?

“How long have you been spying on us?”

“I wasn’t spying. Merely . . . observing,” she said, sitting up straight in her seat.

“Right. How long?”

Mal shrugged and sipped an espresso that had appeared in front of her, not a moment prior. “Three, four days. Not long. You two seemed so determined and I was curious.” She saw that Arthur was about to interrupt her and added, “I really can help you, though. If you’d like?”

“Yes! We’d very much like that, yes,” Ariadne answered, cutting off Arthur before he could stick his too-large foot in his too-tight mouth.

Which was how Arthur found himself following Ariadne and Mal, whom he feared were quickly forming an alliance against him, to the fifth floor corridor, his frown creasing considerably the closer they got to where Arthur dreaded they’d been heading.

Ariadne was frowning as well. “Arthur, isn’t this--”

“Yes, it is.”

It was Mal who answered. Ariadne looked at her, confusion clear on her face.

“You honestly didn’t think that The Room of Requirement only showed itself to you, Arthur?”

Noting the rhetorical nature of that question, Arthur scratched at the back of his neck in lieu of answering. Mal nodded, accepting this response as satisfactory before turning to the wall and closing her eyes.

Once all three of them had entered what Mal had called _The Room of Requirement_ (no longer Arthur’s own, sacred space for hiding away from the rest of the castle) it was blatantly apparent that the room had changed. It was brighter, with more windows and three fireplaces and elegantly carved wooden furniture with vibrantly colored pillows and soft, knit afghans thrown over every seatback. The scene laid out before them looked more Austrian to Arthur than French, but then he remembered Mal mentioning a ski chalet in the Alps and he supposed this place was reflecting that memory back to her somehow. He smiled at the room, feeling nostalgic for its strangely wonderful abilities.

His fondness for the room, however, did not give him any insight as to why Mal had brought them here. The Mirror of Erised had broken, they'd gotten nowhere using the resources in the library, and even though spending time sitting down in front of the fire discussing all of this might help, it didn’t seem to make any sense to Arthur. Why here, why now? What did the room have to do with Beauxbatons?

“Come,” Mal said, pulling Arthur from his thoughts. “This way.”

Arthur and Ariadne blinked back at her, perplexed at the sudden appearance of a wrought iron spiral staircase leading to a lofted area behind one of the massive hearth chimneys.

“I’ve never seen that before.” Arthur grimaced at how jealous he sounded, but Mal just shrugged and smirked at him.

“Well, no, you’ve never had need for it until now.”

“Need what?” He asked, mostly to himself as the two of them followed Mal up the intricately designed steps, their footfalls echoing an odd tempo in the cavernous space.

At the top of the stairs lay a chaise lounge and across from it a floor to ceiling painting of snow-capped mountains in a gilded frame.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Ariadne commented.

“Oui, it is.”

Mal wasn’t looking at the painting though, she was looking over at Arthur, wanting to see his reaction, wondering if he’d understand what the painting was truly showing him. As his face shifted from what appeared to be a frowning indifference to eyebrow-raising wonder, Mal grinned, knowing he’d figured it through.

“It allows you to go back,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

“Yes, Arthur. Whenever I’d like. Well, not whenever. The room can make this painting come and go as it pleases, since it seems to know when I’m avoiding my coursework but . . .” she trailed off with a small grin and shrugged, the tips of her dark hair swinging against her shoulders. It was a gesture Arthur had seen her use multiple times and found himself charmed by it, her nonchalance and easy acceptance of all things. He didn’t know how he could ever be so relaxed around something as impressive as a portal to a hidden castle in the middle of France. This was truly unfathomable magic.

“That’s impossible,” Ariadne breathed, her eyes going wide. “How is that possible?”

“It can’t be.”

“Ah, but it is!” And Mal stepped forward with a flourish and touched the third mountaintop from the left with her index finger as if she were pressing a button. The gilded frame swung out silently from its place on the wall and revealed an endless black corridor to the three of them.  

“It connects to _la Salle sur Demande_ in Beauxbatons. Though, it is on the seventh floor there, not the fifth.”

“Holy shit,” Arthur said, the blow of realisation hitting him all over again. “They’re twin rooms?”

Mal nodded, her eyes bright with excitement over this newly shared secret.

Arthur’s brain was speeding ahead of him, “does that mean there’s another mirror?”

“Mirror?”

“The Mirror of Erised. It was here one day. That’s how I first saw Eames. In the mirror, but it disappeared. Eames said it’d broken.”

This statement was met with a considering frown from Mal, who might have been spying on their discussions for the past few days but clearly didn’t know about the presence of the mirror in the room. She shook her head and gave him a little shrug. “I know nothing about that, but with any kind of bond magic where objects are created as a pair, like the rooms were, if the one side is broken, then the other side is affected. If something that was given to you by the room broke, no matter which half of the whole it happened in, it would make sense that the other half would lose its connection to the object as well.”

Arthur turned back to the darkness that lurked behind the painting, staring into its depths with a surmounting yearn to run head first and never look back. He was terrified and beyond thrilled simultaneously, and couldn’t decide which emotion was going to win out as they warred within him. His hands were shaking at his sides and he bounced on the balls of his feet, nervous energy bursting through every limb.  

 _This was it_ , he thought. _I can actually go find him, and perhaps . . ._

“There is one thing,” Mal said, a note of hesitation in her tone. Arthur’s heart sank to his shoes at the sound.

“Oh god, what?”

Mal coughed out a surprised laugh, “nothing as dire as you’re making it out to be.” She stepped back from him, covering her mirth with a delicate hand. “Look at you! Your entire demeanour just changed.”

“He does that,” Ariadne chimed in. “Always immediately thinks of the worst possible scenario.” She patted him on the back as she said this, smiling the entire time.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Arthur shrugged off her hand, quickly losing patience. “What’s the one thing?”

“It won’t be real.” At Arthur’s narrowed eyes, she hastily continued. “I mean, it is real in the sense that you will feel the wind and the cold and smell the food and can talk to the people, and that’s all real, but you won’t truly be physically there. This portal just offers you a projection of the school and the grounds, and while you’re inside it, you’re merely a shade to those on the other side.”

Beside him, Ariadne actually whined. “Shit. So, they can’t make out, then?”

Mal chuckled while Arthur just rubbed a hand over his face in resigned frustration. “No, they can’t. But you’ll be able to talk to him, Arthur. Face to face. And at the hols, you can come visit me, and I’ll show you the school. Once the location is known to you, you’ll be able to find it whenever you go.”

A sudden rush of affection hit Arthur so hard he almost staggered. He had no idea what this girl’s name was at the beginning of breakfast and now, not two hours later, she offered her friendship with open arms and an endless amount of generosity so freely, he didn’t know how to begin to respond.

After several painful seconds of quiet contemplation, in which Arthur wracked his brain for something genuine to say that wouldn’t come out sounding ridiculous, he settled for, “ _merci mille fois_ ,” with a hand placed over his heart. He held back a grimace at his own gesture, hating how uncertain he felt at this overt display of affection towards a person he barely knew.

Mal smiled back at him, with a kindness that couldn’t be denied, and said simply, “ _de rien_.”

The moment hung in the air, thick and sweet before them, and it didn’t feel awkward like Arthur would have thought, it felt . . . nice.

“I really wanted to see them make out, though,” Ariadne lamented, staring sadly at the painting and successfully ripping the moment to shreds with her teeth. Arthur closed his eyes, if only to resit rolling them, and dropped his hand from his chest.

“Fucking hell, Ariadne.”

 

* * *

 

Exactly four minutes later, Arthur had been counting down the seconds, he still found himself on the Hogwarts side of the portal, frozen in place, flanked by two smirking schoolgirls with seemingly endless patience. He wanted to throttle something.

At the five minute mark, Mal sighed and crossed her arms. “My, my, Arthur, you look positively parched. Should I fetch you a glass of water?”

Arthur gritted his teeth together as Ariadne bent over with unsuppressed laughter.

“No, really. Your thirst is palpable,” she added, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I feel dehydrated just looking at to you.”

“Alright, fuck this,” he spat and stalked forward, leaving the laughter of his idiot friends behind him without a second thought.

As soon as he breached the frame of the painting, blackness consumed him. It was as if he’d closed his eyes and opened them again into a void of the darkest, starless night. Heart racing with the thought of the unknown, he stalled, hands coming to fists at his sides as considered turning back. Something small and nagging, however, wriggled in his belly, pulling him forward. He allowed the feeling to guide him through the impossible blackness, blinking repeatedly.

Light appeared before him a moment later, it was small at first, but quickly grew to an arched opening, much like the one behind him. The pulling in his belly tugged harder, surging him forwards to the archway, until he was flat out running towards it, his panting breath echoing oddly in the void around him.

With a stumble he burst through on the other side, tumbling to the ground, and feeling familiar carpet beneath his fingers. He looked up, noting the similarity of the rooms, and smiling at how it appeared to still be Mal’s reflections projected on the space.

Brushing dust from his knees after he stood, he realised something, he had no idea how to get around this castle. Let alone, how to find Eames.

“Shit.”

“We prefer, _merde_ , on this side,” Mal said, coming up behind him. Arthur nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Shit!” he cursed again, spinning round to find her smirking at him.

“What? You thought I’d leave you to wander the castle on your own? Surely, someone would take notice of a Hogwarts student with a love-sick look on his face and firecall McGonagall. Then where would we be? Come. I have a shortcut for you.”

“Where’s Ariadne?”

“Someone has to be the responsible one and go to class.”

Arthur nodded. Right, classes. Shit, he was going to be in so much trouble with all the truancies he was tallying. Mal grabbed him by the arm and tugged, pulling him away from thoughts of his coursework. All the better, really.

She led him to a wardrobe with two soft blue robes hanging inside it which, of course, fit them perfectly. Mal smirked at him as she straightened his lapels, placing a hand over the B on his chest, looking fond. He blushed and tucked his chin, feeling out of sorts without his customary Hogwarts’ black covering him.

“It looks good on you,” she said, and then walked him to a suit of armor in the corner with a crooked sword hanging limply in front of him. Mal tilted the hilt of the sword to the left and the wall behind them groaned to life and shifted to reveal yet another corridor.

Arthur followed, tight-lipped and so tightly strung that he thought he’d snap in two. Mal maintained a knowing smirk and kept looking behind her at odd intervals, making sure Arthur was keeping up.

Before he knew it, Arthur walked out into a world of periwinkle haze. Laid out before them in endless rows of lavender, spilling over in rounded hedges. Lazy bees buzzed over the flowers in heavy swoops and dots of pollen drifted through the warm, sweet-scented air.

“The lavender fields here are spelled to constantly grow, and therefore it always appears to be summertime on this side of the castle.”

“Holy shit,” Arthur breathed.

“Merde, mon cher. Merde.”

The sound of the endearment brought his nerves crashing back to him, making him to walk faster, his hands trailing past the stems, brushing over them and yet barely causing them to stir. It was a fascinating trick.

The feeling in his belly was growing, wriggling wildly under his skin. He broke into a run, warm air rushing past his face as he turned left towards what he could see was a Quidditch pitch rising up in the distance. Behind him Mal was shouting something, he couldn’t hear, and didn’t care, the feeling inside him taking over all his instincts.

At the top of the hill, he stopped, his limbs obeying something beyond his control. Part of him wanted to rebel against it, and part of him felt breathless with excitement by the wonder of it all that he couldn’t stop smiling. He was here! At Beauxbatons, walking through their lavender fields and wearing their robes. He knew he should probably take a moment to breathe, take it all in, enjoy the novelty of the experience, but he was too eager. Next time, maybe. But, not now.

Looking ahead of him, students were filing out of the pitch, trailing their brooms behind them. Practice must have just finished, but somehow, Arthur knew one boy would have remained behind. He didn’t know how but suspected the tug in his belly had to be the culprit. It’d led him here, after all.

Jogging towards the crowd, he made certain to skirt its edges, not wanting to run the risk of coming into contact with anyone considering he was only a ‘shad’ as Mal had put it, and would simply drift through them. That’d be awkward, and entirely too disassociating for him to handle at that moment. When he’d successfully made it through the billowing fabric archways onto the green hill of the pitch, the rest of Beauxbatons safely behind him, he paused.

Eames was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the field, stripped down to his trousers and vest. The rest of his uniform lay next to him in a pile of contrasting blue stripes and brown leathers, with is broom perched on top, a few of the twigs bending askew from the handle.

Arthur approached with hesitant steps, not wanting to disturb the grass, lest it give notice to his presence. He wanted to drink in as much of the sight before him as possible before having to muster up the courage to speak.

He was there, really there! Backlit by the afternoon sun, silhouetted against the colourful stands and the foothills of the Alps beyond. Flesh and bone and life all collected into a package that looked as if he’d seen one hell of a match and had gone down fighting.

Upon closer inspection, Eames was covered in sweat and grime. Arthur blinked in confusion, his train of thought derailed from seeing what he’d remembered as a beautiful boy with a beautiful smile, who now sat before him covered in more dirt than a sack of potatoes. From across the field, Eames had seemed poised, almost posh, sipping from what looked like an actual crystal wine glass, although Arthur had no clue where one would procure a crystal fucking wine glass post-Quidditch match and actually have the gall to drink from it with such pomposity. He didn’t know whether to be turned on or to smack the glass right out of his hand.

He watched as Eames took another sip from his glass and his pinky actually lifted into the air as the fine crystal touched his lips. It was all Arthur had in him not to snort, because that was just ridiculous.

Apparently, he had made a noise because Eames snapped to attention, his head turning towards Arthur faster than he’d been prepared for, as that singular gaze found him standing not but a few yards away.

The feeling in his belly flared to life as soon as Eames’ eyes found his, and Arthur stepped forward without even realising he’d done so until he was only a hair’s breadth away from Eames, still sitting serenely in the grass, looking up at him, utter astonishment mixing with amusement playing across his face.

“Hello,” Eames said, his voice teasing out the end of the word as a smile pulled at his wine-stained lips. Eames spelled the glass away with a flick of his wrist and Arthur tried very hard not to gawk at the level of magic such a simple gesture would require. 

Arthur, ever the elocutionist, sputtered, “you’re filthy,” then took two steps back, stumbled over his own feet and sat down hard on the ground.

Across from him, Eames’ eyebrows pulled inward as his mouth pursed, in the kind of expression one would give a tiny child or a wee pup upon seeing them say their first word or execute a trick as if Arthur were the most endearing creature he’d ever seen. It was the most humiliating reaction Arthur had ever received for insulting someone, and he immediately hated himself. “Fuck,” he cursed, and buried his head in his hands.

“Hey,” Eames said, crawling over his pile of soiled clothes to get closer to him, “mon cher, it’s okay. I am filthy.” He said this with a lilt of amusement to his voice, which only caused Arthur to groan louder into his hands.

Wisps of cool air, like the tickle of a dandelion bud, brushed past his skin and he lifted his head to see Eames attempting to cup his face in his large, sun-tanned palms. The growing look of concern on Eames’ face as he realised he couldn’t touch Arthur, had him reaching out, despite his nerves, to explain.

“I’m not really here. There’s a portal. A friend showed me. She used to go here, to Beauxbatons, and . . .” he trailed off, seeing the look of utter devastation crumble over Eames’ fine-boned features.

“I can’t touch you,” he said, all humor leaving his voice. “You aren’t real.” He pulled back, his brash personality shrinking back with him as his hands went to pull at his dirt-streaked hair. “I knew it. _Je suis fou_. . .”

Arthur scrambled onto his knees. “No! I am real! I just. . . the room! Where you first saw me. It has a twin. At Hogwarts, there’s another room. And there’s a way to travel back and forth through it, but it’s just a projection of either school. I’m here, I’m real, and I can smell the lavender in the air and the sweat on your skin, but I can’t. . .” he raised a hand, wanting to brush away a trail of dirt on one sharp cheekbone, but quickly balled it into a fist knowing that he couldn’t. “I just can’t. . . touch you.”

Eames looked up at him through the frame of his hands, there was a fresh smear of dirt on his cheek. “Hogwarts?”

Arthur nodded and attempted to smile. Eames lifted a finger, hovering it over Arthur’s face, a fraction of amusement peeking through. “ _Fossette_.”  

“Yes. Unfortunately.”

Eames put his finger to his own lips, shushing him, and Arthur’s grin widened. He looked around him, taking note of Eames’ knees sinking into the damp grass, along with the whole sorry state of him, which didn’t seem to bother Eames in the slightest, despite the fact that it would have driven Arthur up a wall to be that dirty for an extended period of time.

With a head tilt and a shrug, Arthur asked, “Can I try something?”

His question was greeted with a leer as an answer and Arthur couldn’t help but roll his eyes, because, honestly.

Shaking himself free of any remaining nerves, he raised his wand and cast an experimental charm, keeping his eyes closed for concentration. When he opened them, there was a surprisingly less amount of grime covering Eames’ person than there had previously been.

“Holy shit. It worked.”

Eames looked down at his slightly cleaner self, promptly threw back his head and laughed, falling back onto the grass and successfully muddying himself all over again.

“Oh, Jesus. I just . . . “ Arthur cut himself off by aiming another charm at Eames. And then another, and then another, until the ridiculous boy was rolling with laughter on top of a clean blanket with (mostly) clean clothes. A rebellious streak of dirt remained slashed across his collarbone, which had Arthur pondering some very intense thoughts regarding the taste of Eames skin and how it would feel under his tongue, before he pulled himself together and sat back on his heels. Satisfied, he nodded down at Eames as if he were a properly brewed potion, happy with his work.

Propping himself up on his elbows and crossing his legs in front of him, Eames grinned cheekily over at Arthur, mimicking how he first appeared when Arthur saw him in the mirror all those days ago. A wave of déjà vu crashed over Arthur so strong that he felt his throat go tight with raw emotion. He had to remind himself not to snap his wand in two, realising almost too late that he’d been holding onto it for dear life, as if the small scrap of wood would help him remain standing. He swallowed, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth, willing himself to act normal - willing himself to breathe.

“So,” Eames said, tilting his head to the side, a knowing smile crossing over his sun-kissed face. “What happens now?”

 _There are many ways to answer that question_ , Arthur thought, and looked up from his hands. His grip was loose on his wand, his hand steady. Behind him, the sweet scent of the lavender fields filled the air, the peaks of the mountains loomed just beyond, painted golden with the afternoon light. The sun was warm on his back, the wind was cool on his face, and there was a boy in front of him, beautiful and perfect in the grass, wanting him. The swell of possibility hung heavy with promise before them, hopeful and very, very real.

Together, they grinned.

 

.

.

.

 

Fin

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ek! I hope you enjoyed it! I had a helluva time writing this little story and would love to create more for this verse. Perhaps have them actually interact in the same country would be nice, yes? Yeah, I should make that happen. 
> 
> Comments are love. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
